Tag: empathy

As you may have heard, Hans Rosling passed away on February 7, 2017. We are deeply saddened by this loss and, in remembering Rosling, we thought a tribute to him was due. The impact Rosling had on visualization and statistical communication is huge; he has left a very big legacy.

In this special episode, we asked five renowned visualization experts to tell us how Rosling’s work influenced them and how he impacted their own work. Here we hear from Kim Rees (Periscopic), Andy Kirk (Visualising Data), Robert Kosara (Eagereyes and Tableau), Kennedy Elliott (National Geographic), and Alberto Cairo (University of Miami).

Related episodes

We have Professor Paul Slovic from University of Oregon on the show to talk about “Statistical Numbing.” Professor Slovic is a renowned expert on the effect of numbers and statistics on empathy (or lack thereof). His fascinating, if not depressing, experiments have consistently shown how hard it is for statistics to elicit any sense of scale in human tragedies and how numbers can often even be detrimental if the goal is to elicit compassion and generous actions from an audience.

On the show, we talk about “Statistical Numbing” and it psychological underpinnings. Professor Slovic also describes his experiments and their implications. And we address one of the most important questions: Is there hope? Is there something we, as practitioners, can do to counteract these negative effects?

Enjoy this deeply scientific episode and let us know what you think!

This episode of Data Stories is sponsored by FreshBooks, the small business accounting software that makes your accounting tasks easy, fast and secure. FreshBooks is offering a month of free unrestricted use to all of our listeners. To claim your free month of FreshBooks, go to http://freshbooks.com/datastories and sign up for free without the use of a credit card. Note: Remember to enter “Data Stories” in the section titled “I heard about FreshBooks from…”